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Abba
Guest
We sure need one. It would be nice for people with homosexual tendencies to have a saint as guide and who they can pray to for intercession.
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john_ennis
Guest
A very interesting question. It would have to be an example of one who heroically dealt with the challenge of chastity.
And, since it’s really a question of chastity, saints like Augustine and Francis are already good examples.
But a saint who dealt with same-sex attraction? I wonder if there are already some?
And, since it’s really a question of chastity, saints like Augustine and Francis are already good examples.
But a saint who dealt with same-sex attraction? I wonder if there are already some?
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powerofk
Guest
There probably are some who dealt with it - but they would have kept it to themselves and offered it up to God.
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Tim_D
Guest
Would you really want the Church to canonize someone simply for the reason that they were homosexual? Should the Church embrace the same foolish progressive agenda that has seen a systematic disassembling of moral society?
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Abba
Guest
The way I understand it, SSA is a disorder. Period. However, it means people suffering from SSA cannot marry. A blind man can marry, a person with cancer and people with a variety of maladies can marry - but not those suffering from SSA. So, their cross is particular and they need our support and guidance. They are our brothers and sisters and they are in need.
I don’t think the Church should embrace the gay agenda, but, I think we need to support and provide better guidance to our brothers and sisters who are suffering from SSA. I think a saint who suffered the same and persevered living a holy fruitful life would serve as a good spiritual guide
It is a matter that could probably be addressed in Vatican III and in an encyclical.
:twocents:.
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Abba
Guest
Oh, yeah, I heard the gay claim of Serius and Bacchus and I don’t buy it at all. This is the exact hair splitting Greeks argue when it comes to the gay lobby attempting to rewrite history. Insofar as Paul. Most definitely Paul was not suffering from SSA. Paul was called by God to the priesthood. By God Himself. We are to offer the best of the harvest to the Lord- let alone God Himself selecting someone with a serious disorder. I understand Paul spiritually and nothing about his teaching makes me think that he disliked women. Maybe if the world paid more attention to his teachings we would not have the SSA problem we have now. Maybe if women knew their place men wont be lost.
And no, John was not Jesus’ lover.
i think it would be nice for people with SSA to have a saint not the gay lobby.
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freerf
Guest
The term “homosexual” is a relatively new term, coined only in the late 19th century. It is unique in that it implies not only an action - what is strongly prohibited in the Bible - but also a tendency.
Before the term “homosexual” there was “sodomite”, a term defining someone who engaged in the homosexual act. A person with only the inclination was not a “sodomite”. They were just, well, a person.
So if you are asking, “when will the church recognize a ‘sodomite’”? the answer is - in my mind - never. The two are mutually exclusive. (Unless it be an ex-sodomite.)
However, if the question is truly, “when will the church recognize a ‘homosexual’”? One might suggest homosexual saints already exists. Again, the modern definition of “homosexual” may only imply the tendency. We don’t know.
I often pray to Mary when I have impure thoughts. I am male and she is female. She is the best intercessor for this imo. So why would a homosexual need any other Saint?
Before the term “homosexual” there was “sodomite”, a term defining someone who engaged in the homosexual act. A person with only the inclination was not a “sodomite”. They were just, well, a person.
So if you are asking, “when will the church recognize a ‘sodomite’”? the answer is - in my mind - never. The two are mutually exclusive. (Unless it be an ex-sodomite.)
However, if the question is truly, “when will the church recognize a ‘homosexual’”? One might suggest homosexual saints already exists. Again, the modern definition of “homosexual” may only imply the tendency. We don’t know.
I often pray to Mary when I have impure thoughts. I am male and she is female. She is the best intercessor for this imo. So why would a homosexual need any other Saint?
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GEddie
Guest
No, but rather, because they overcame a personal defect and a pernicious cultural movement and went on to holiness of life.
Canonization is not a reward for the person. They are too dead to benefit. Rather, it is a sign for the rest of the Church. And the Church in the here and now desperately needs that particular sign.
No, but it should put up a counter sign to the general culture.
ICXC NIKA.
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tamedlion
Guest
The Catholic church does not keep homosexuals from getting married any more that it does not keep a man from marrying a women. I am a married man to a woman but the church does not let me marry another woman besides the one that I already have, even though I have much loving to offer to other women. Homosexuals have the same capabilities as heterosexuals to have common sense.The way I understand it, SSA is a disorder. Period. However, it means people suffering from SSA cannot marry. A blind man can marry, a person with cancer and people with a variety of maladies can marry - but not those suffering from SSA. So, their cross is particular and they need our support and guidance. They are our brothers and sisters and they are in need.
I don’t think the Church should embrace the gay agenda, but, I think we need to support and provide better guidance to our brothers and sisters who are suffering from SSA. I think a saint who suffered the same and persevered living a holy fruitful life would serve as a good spiritual guide
It is a matter that could probably be addressed in Vatican III and in an encyclical.
:twocents:.
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johnnyc176
Guest
I thought it was addressed…
Mark 10:2-12: Jesus said to the Pharisees, “God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become as one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no man must separate…”
Romans 7:1-3: Do you not know, brethren – for I am speaking to those who know the law – that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
1 Corinthians 7:10-16: To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) – and that the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace. Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife?
(**NOTE – Here we see the power of one person’s faith in Christ sanctifying the rest of the family, including infants. Why? Because the family is one in Christ, even if only one member is a believer.)
Ephesians 5:22-33: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
(**NOTE – Here Paul compares the sacrament of marriage between a man and a wife with the relationship Christ has with His Church - That they are one, and not separate entities. That is why Jesus said in Luke 10:16 - “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” People who reject the teachings of the Church because of their personal opinions would do well to remember this- they aren’t just rejecting what the Pope says; they are rejecting what Jesus says.)
Hebrews 13:4: Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Would these be the same folks who try and find homosexuals in all the old TV shows?
I think the problem is people project too much of what they want/wish were the case as opposed to what actually is.
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ethereality
Guest
I’m distressed that this hasn’t been pointed out yet: People are not “homosexual” like they are “American” or “African”. People struggle with homosexuality; people are not homosexual. Homosexuality and “being homosexual” is a sociological theory and socially constructed identity, not an intrinsic characteristic or innate fact.
When will the Church canonize a man or woman who struggled with same-sex attractions? Probably not for several decades.
If you need encouragement in dealing with same-sex attractions, see the courage/encourage organizations, and start reading good books!
When will the Church canonize a man or woman who struggled with same-sex attractions? Probably not for several decades.
If you need encouragement in dealing with same-sex attractions, see the courage/encourage organizations, and start reading good books!
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OraLabora
Guest
This is not, strictly speaking, true. Many suffering from same-sex attraction have married. It was more common in the past, to be sure, when people suffering from SSA had to keep it secret as it could not only make them social outcasts, but lead to their arrest even in the UK, Canada and the US.
Many have even fathered or borne children.
For some their attraction is not exclusive and they can manage the marital act. For others, it is and these often would be called “confirmed bachelors” in the doublespeak of the past.
In todays world though it would take extreme fortitude for someone with this disorder to counter the trends and remain in a chaste sacramental marriage, given the social pressures that have banalized sex in the extreme. But are these pressures any worse than for the rest of us who are tempted daily by even mainstream media to fulfill our wildest sexual fantasies through pre-marital sex/extra-marital sex/pornography?
Rowing against the current of the day and remaining chaste has always been difficult, perhaps even more so today with the media bombardment we’re subjected to.
As a saint to hold up as an example to give us fortitude, I can think of no better than St. Augustine who himself lived an amoral sexual life for many years until the prayers of his mother St. Monica were finally answered and he converted to the faith and went on to become bishop.
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Abba
Guest
Yes, there are those who are bi-sexual and who marry and have children. I was referring to those who suffer from SSA and do not consider this possible and are Catholics. I think we lack knowledge about this disorder and I think there are different causes, degrees, and some get this due to experiences but others may have been born with their particular SSA which may be different by degree or manifestation from those which develop it due to negative life experiences.Then there are those who are raised with SSA and are encouraged to practice it.
At any rate, I was thinking of those who may have been born with SSA. The gay lobby to their advantage has added to the confusion; by adding the ‘t’ to ‘lgb’. I don’t think the ‘t’ belong with ‘lgb’, I think it’s a different disorder even from SSA.
There is also the practice of SSA out of pure perversion. It seems to develop from an excess of too much sex and decadence. There is a famous salsa about the playboy who became a homosexual. It’s like after having so many women the person needs something new and different to make it interesting and unfortunately when this get’s boring the perversion goes another step and another. In these cases, Saint Augustine would be the ideal saint. For others, like the ones who may have been born with SSA or are genuinely struggling with it (or those who have impression of being a female in a man’s body) and their SSA was not caused by negative life experiences, it would be nice if they were blessed with a saint to guide them.
SSA seems to be too general of a term to be effective in communicating well about the topic. There are so many different causes and these causes are so distinct that really the only thing many have in common is that SSA is part of it. Well, I just see how people come to this forum seeking guidance on how to live as a Catholic with SSA and I just think that it would be nice if someday they have a saint to guide them. But, again, a saint to guide a specific type of SSA and why not, we have a saint for people suffering from cancer - St. Peregrine and heart failure - John of God and Saint Dymphna for the mentally ill, etc…
The words used in this topic add to the confusion as well. Is it a homosexual saint or a saint for those suffering from SSA disorder…
Just thinking…
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InNomineDomini
Guest
Obviously, folks who suffer from same-sex attraction can pray to any of the Saints already. Maybe there isn’t a “patron Saint” for this disorder, but that doesn’t mean those people are left in the dark.
And of course, Saints aren’t canonized based on how useful it would be to have a new one.
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Inquiringperson
Guest
Yes, perhaps there could be different degrees of SSA. We already know that there are different degrees of OCD, so maybe it’s possible for SSA to have different degrees?
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ethereality
Guest
It’s not that the attractions have different degrees (though of course people are attracted to different individuals with different intensities) – it’s rather how strongly the person identifies as homosexual that has degrees, together with other possible factors like hormones and life experiences.
If someone buys into the rhetoric that their attractions define who they are and that they “are homosexual” etc. at an early age, for example, it will be more difficult for that person to think beyond that box and in those terms.
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Christianus_Dei
Guest
As a Catholic man suffering from SSA, it would be amazing to know someone dealt with what I do and still managed to be a great servant of God. I find myself praying that any saint who might have dealt with this but kept it secret would intercede for me.
Just as an inspiration, it’d be cool. Of course, dealing with a particular sin is no reason for canonization. It would be cool if it happened though.
Just as an inspiration, it’d be cool. Of course, dealing with a particular sin is no reason for canonization. It would be cool if it happened though.
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EIF5A
Guest
I don’t identify as “homosexual/gay” because I want to. It’s just the reality in my situation and for those who have zero to no romantic attraction to the opposite gender.
Using the phrase “same-sex attraction” does not change anything. Rose is a rose is a red flower with thorns.
It doesn’t define someone completely, but it’s descriptive for an aspect of someone.
To tell someone to not use the word “homosexual” is like telling someone to deny reality. It won’t go away, nor will it change (outside of some divine miracle).
It’s a descriptive word. It has no power by itself.
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EIF5A
Guest
There’s a story I read somewhere about a modern-day Orthodox saint.
A homosexual man visited this monk, and the monk ended up slapping him.
The man was upset. He asked, “Why did you do that?”
The monk, knowing through divine inspiration that the man was despairing, said [paraphrased], “If you commit suicide, you will be lost. But if you carry this cross, it will lead you to salvation.”
The man became sanctified and led a noble life.
A homosexual man visited this monk, and the monk ended up slapping him.
The man was upset. He asked, “Why did you do that?”
The monk, knowing through divine inspiration that the man was despairing, said [paraphrased], “If you commit suicide, you will be lost. But if you carry this cross, it will lead you to salvation.”
The man became sanctified and led a noble life.
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